


Demonology 101

by Feneris



Category: Gravity Falls, Transcendence AU - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Demonologists, Demons, Demons Trolling University Professors, Gen, Professors, Trolling, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feneris/pseuds/Feneris
Summary: Demonology 101: Introduction to Demonology, was a basic class. It covered such topics as to what exactly demons were, the dangers of demon summoning, some of the current theories as to how demonic deals worked, along with a basic overview of some of the most well know demons. The only thing summoned in that class was a minor elemental to demonstrate how summoning worked.No one was expecting Demonology 101 to turn into Demonology 458: Alcorian Lore.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Silly little fic that hopped into my mind and I managed to catch before it could leave. Basically the idea was for Alcor to start trolling a demonology class, only I couldn't really make it work with just a single class, so I settled for him trolling the entire demonology department and it grew from there.

Demonology 101 was usually the first class anyone interested in demons took. Like all introductory classes it covered the basics. What exactly demons were, the most widely accepted theories on how demonic deals worked, a basic overview of some of the more well known demons, topped off by a shit-ton of warnings about how summoning and dealing with demons was horribly dangerous, even for cautious professionals and would most likely make you either dead, or wishing you were. 

Still, Professor Avery Larch have always found it useful to summon up a minor elemental about midway through the semester. After over a month of dire warnings, it did some good to show that one would not be ripped to shreds if they so much as spoke a demon’s name. Too much fear could be as dangerous as too much confidence when it came to demons. Such simple, mindless spirits were easy to summon, interesting to look at, and easily contained by wards. Not to mention that after a month, the students were always excited to see something summoned, no matter how minor. 

Over a hundred eager eyes watched him as he sketched the last of the wards onto the auditorium's concrete floor, explaining as he did that it was always prudent to make your wards capable of containing something much stronger than what you intended to summon, just in case what you got was not what you were expecting. He pricked his finger and recited the incantation.

A great wave of primal fear swept through the classroom, and Avery instantly knew something had gone horribly wrong. There should have been a small burst of fire and smoke not _this._

The bottom dropped out of his stomach as the shadows in the room started to coalesce into a familiar form. The same form that belong to the being every respected demonologist agreed was the strongest demon in existence. 

**"WHO DARES SUMMON ALCOR THE DREAMBENDER?"**

His wards had been made to keep out a medium to high powered elemental. Not something like this. Not that there were any wards strong enough to hold the Dreambender. While he might have been able to banish a high level elemental, there was no way he could simply banish Alcor back to the mindscape. There was really only one thing he could do. 

"Oh mighty Dreambender," he intoned. "There has been a mistake. Truly we did not intend to disturb you. What may we..."

**"There is a freezer that belongs to the demonology department. I want its contents."**

"Wha... bu... just this once?" The professional side of Avery reared its head, aghast at the lack of specifics.

 **"And your transgression will be forgiven. This time."** Alcor finished for him.

"Bu... tha... Of course! Of course, you may have whatever is in that freezer at this moment."

 **"That is acceptable."** Alcor declared. And then he was gone. The shadows pulled back to their proper places and the oppressive feeling of fear left the room. The entire class let out a breath of pure relief. 

"And that," Avery declared. "Is why you must always be prepared to get something different than what you intended to summon. Never take it for granted that you will always get what you call for. Class dismissed."

The class practically flooded out of the door in their haste to leave. Avery slumped, his head hitting the surface of the podium and his heart pounding. He had been so lucky that Alcor had been feeling merciful. For all his power and unpredictability, there was always a chance you could get lucky and catch him in a forgiving mood. He shuddered to think what would have happened if that had not been the case. 

"That's it," he declared. "I'm doing every summoning in the summoning lab from now on." 

He slowly began gathering up his lecture notes and putting them in his bag. There was one thing bugging him about the whole business though. The demonology department's large freezer was normally used to store fresh meat for use in sacrifices (along with the occasionally human cadaver). Except, the demonology department wasn't storing anything like that in the freezer at the moment. The only thing in there was a bag of groceries that Avery was keeping until he went home.

_What would a demon want with three cartons of berry burst ice-cream?_

\---

Thankfully, Avery didn't have another class until Wednesday. The extra day to calm down after the disastrous summoning attempt in Demonology 101, did a world of good in helping him sort through his thoughts. While it could have been a disaster, it hadn't. For all his uncontainable power, Alcor was at least one of the demons that could be reasoned with. No one had gotten hurt and all it had cost him was three tubs of ice-cream. 

Still, it was a great relief to him that the summoning scheduled for his next class was taking place in the summoning lab. Which had systems in place to help contain unfriendly demons and protect bystanders. Nothing stronger than the most minor of minor demons were summoned for Demonology 262: Etiquette and Protocols, but after Monday's incident, he didn't want to take any chances. 

He double checked every symbol and line in the circle he drew, making absolutely sure it would actually summon Kikilik the Chirpy and not Alcor, or gods forbid, something even worse. All the correct sacrifices were in place, along with the strongest binding wards he was capable of conjuring. He pricked his finger and said the incantation.

Primal fear washed through the room, and the shadows danced. Avery nearly choked. Alcor would not be pleased to be accidentally summoned twice, by the same person nonetheless! His hand reflexively slammed down on the big red emergency button as the shadows began to coalesce. 

Holy water rained down from the overhead sprinkler systems, enough to burn most minor demons back to the mindscape all on it's own. 

A black umbrella snapped open. The alarms suddenly went silent. Music began playing on the speakers.

_"Oh I'm singing in the rain..."_

\---

Avery was dreading Thursday's class, Demonology 352: Demonic Specializations. He was scheduled to summon Persenak the Persnickety, and there was no real way he could put it off as that would stretch the already stuffed class plan to breaking. So instead, he crossed his fingers and prayed that at least this summoning would go according to plan. 

He triple checked every symbol in the circle, and made sure the assorted cleaning products set aside as offerings were exactly to Persenak's specifications. All the while he warned the class that you must _always_ be careful, lest you summon something you couldn't deal with. 

The class, who had all heard the rumors about him accidentally summoning Alcor the Dreambender twice in one week, chose not to comment.

Once again he pricked his finger, spoke the incantation, and... nothing happened. He let out a long sigh of relief. A dud summoning was a whole lot better than a pissed off demon. Sure, this set off his lesson plans, but...

A door on the other side of the lab suddenly slammed open. A man pushed a cart loaded with cleaning supplies through. All the while whistling a cheerful tune that somehow made everyone's hair stand on end. He was dressed like he was one of the university cleaning staff. Except no one could recall the cleaning staff every wearing gold and black jumpsuits. Nor could anyone recall ever seeing a janitor who had gold eyes with black sclera, a pair of wings protruding from their lower back, and who wore a baseball cap that floated a few inches above their head. 

The entire class watched in stunned disbelief as the man pushed the cleaning cart across the lab, right into the middle of the summoning circle. 

"HEY!" He called out. "SOMEONE SUMMON ALCOR THE JANITOR?"

\---

Despite its name, Demonology 412: Summoning and Symbols, did not actually involve any summoning. And by the time Friday rolled around, Avery couldn't have been happier for that fact.

“As you can see,” he explained, flicking over to the next slide. “Changing the symbol itself makes little difference in the power of the summon. It’s the meaning of the symbol that matters most. A prime example of this is Xoxers the Transmuted. His summoning circle, seen here, contains European alchemy symbols, but…”

“Professor!” One of the students interrupted him. “Isn’t that Alcor’s summoning circle?” 

“And why do you have that little animation saying ‘summoning’ at the bottom?” Another butted in. 

“WHAT!?” 

Avery’s head practically snapped as he spun around to gaze in horror at the summoning circle of Alcor blazoned across the screen. Complete with a little line of scrolling text at the bottom, which indeed said “summoning…”

A poof sounded out of the lecture hall’s speakers, followed by the sounds of triumphal music. An little animated Alcor appeared on the screen with a poof of cartoon smoke and a rain of confetti. 

[I’m BACK!!!!! <3 <3 <3 :) :) ]

And then all the lights went out.

\---

It was nearly eight weeks before the university was open again. Six of those weeks were spent driving the Alcor Virus back into whatever dark corner of the internet it hid in when it wasn’t wreaking havoc across the connected world. The other two weeks were spent getting the smell down to a bearable level. The Alcor Virus having unplugged all the zoological specimen and cadaver freezers. 

Avery Larch spent every day of those eight weeks summoning demons in his private summoning lab in his basement. At first he had only summoned the most minor demons whose names were practically etched into the safe-summons list. Then as the weeks had gone on, and he had gotten more and more desperate, he had gone on to summon every single demon he could think of.

Every single summon had produced a demon that mostly fit the usual description of them. And every single one of them were obviously Alcor the Dreambender doing a half-assed impersonation of said demon. (Most demons didn’t come in black and gold color schemes for one.)

When, in a fit of stress-induced insanity, he had deliberately summoned Alcor; he had gotten a very detailed, but also very artificial, puppet that looked like Alcor. The only reason he knew it wasn’t Alcor in the shape of a puppet, was because he could see Alcor hiding in the rafters, manipulating the puppet’s strings and doing bad ventriloquism lines out of the corner of his mouth.

The university was in shambles. The Alcor Virus had disrupted the entire year, and threw half a semester down the drain. (Along with over five hundred thousand dollars in zoological specimens and cadavers.) 

All enlisted students had been given a credit on their tuition and books, with classes starting afresh the next semester. A far better alternative than trying to push through eight weeks of missed classes. Avery was looking forward to this new semester with a mix of hope and dread.

Surely this curse couldn’t keep following him forever?

\---

“Aright,” Avery announced, turning to face his Demonology 372 class. “We’ve triple checked every symbol, and gotten the offering exact down to the microgram of mutton.” He paused a surveyed the assembled students. “How much do you want to bet we’re actually going to get Nilliska the Apathetic?”

Not single student took him up on that bet. 

Avery pricked his finger and spoke the incantation. A wave of primal terror washed over the entire class.

They were all used to it by now.

**”WHO DARES SUMMON ALCOR THE AIRBENDER?”**

Avery let out a defeated sigh. The entire class groaned. Alcor was dressed in yellow and orange robes. He was carrying a carved staff over his shoulder, had tattoos running down his arms in the shape of blue arrows, and was sitting astride a large furry beast that looked like a combination between a sheep, a bison, and a beaver.

Avery wordless tossed a bag of gummy worms to the demon, who vanished instantly.

“Alright,” he said to the class. “You know the drill. Extra credit to whomever of you can figure out what he’s referencing _this_ time.”

\---

“We’re sorry Avery, but things can’t go on the way they’re going.” The Vice-President of the university shook her head sadly. 

“You think I’m deliberately summoning Alcor as some kind of joke!?” Avery shot back. “I’ve tried everything to keep him from showing up. But he keeps answering every summoning, no matter what I do!” 

“Look,” the Vice-President held up her hands. “I don’t think you have anything to do with this, and that you haven’t taken all reasonable precautions. That’s why we’re suggesting you take a voluntary sabbatical, rather than simply firing you. While no one has gotten hurt yet, if we let things keep going the way they are; people are going to start demanding we do something. At least this way we can be seen to have been proactive on this problem. Not to mention it get’s you out of the firing line if this gets worse.” 

“So this is for my own good?” Avery had to fight the urge to sneer. “How generous.”

“Look, I know this isn’t fair to you.” The Vice-President repeated. “But me, and the rest of the university board agree that it’s the best option we have. You’ll still get your vacation pay and benefits. We just want you to step aside for a bit and see if this temporary professor we hired gets any different results.”

\---

“So, as I understand it, your previous professor was a bit careless when he was drawing his summoning circles.” Professor Gates, let out a little chuckle. “That’s why I double checked every symbol when I drew the circle last night, and then once more this morning. I always like to give a bit of time after I draw the circle so that I can see it with fresh eyes when I go to summon the demon. You’d be surprised what you miss.” 

He pricked his finger with a sterilized needle. 

“Now that we’ve verified that our circle is free of errors,” Gates continued. “We should be able to summon Naggle the Noxious and be confident we will get him.” He turned to the circle and spoke the incantation. “Excellent, see how the shadows are condensing in the center of the circle that is…”

**”WHO DARES SUMMON ALCOR THE DREAM-SOFA?”**

\---

“No.”

“Look Avery, we’re sorry. It’s perfectly clear now that this is not your fault. We only did what we thought was the best course of action for everybody.” The Vice-President of the university pinched the bridge of her nose. “We’re even willing to give you a bonus if you’ll come back to teaching.”

“The answer is still no.” Avery’s voice was firm. “I’m finding myself enjoying my sabbatical. Which I remind you, you practically forced me to take. I am not returning until it is over. Just like we agreed.” 

“And we wouldn’t be calling you if we weren’t desperate! Look, we’ve gone through six temporary demonology professors already! We’ve contacted every professional in North America and none of them are willing to teach demonology here, no matter what we offer them.”

“Which should tell you everything you should need to know. This year has turned into a complete shit-show. I am not putting myself back in the middle of it, no matter what you try to bribe me with. If I never again see Alcor the Dreambender for as long as I live, it will be too soon.”

“Avery, please be reasonable…”

“I am being perfectly reasonable in not wanting to stick my neck out on the block again. Now, if you will excuse me. I’m taking my grandkids to the zoo in a half an hour.”

“Avery…”

*click*

The Vice-President stared at the phone for a full five minutes. “Now what do we do?”

It was then that there was a knock on her office door.

\---

“Good afternoon! Welcome to Demonology 101.”

The entire class stared at the new demonology professor. All one hundred and thirty-seven of them. 

“I’m Alcor the Dreambender. But you may call me Professor Evergreen. I’ll be teaching demonology this year until Professor Larch comes back from his sabbatical.”

Silence.

“Well, since there seems to be no questions…”

“Is this even legal?” One of the students suddenly blurted out.

Alcor cocked his head to the side. “Well, it is currently illegal for employers to discriminate based of an employee’s species, and I am perfectly qualified for this job. I have a Ph.D. in Demonology from Oregon State University. Is there any other questions?”

“Are you going to kill us?”

“Not unless you give me a reason to. Any others?”

“Is there a participation mark for this class?”

“I’ll answer that in a moment. But first I want to go over a few things.” He reached up and quickly sketched a summoning circle on the white-board. “I can be reached by this summoning circle if you need extra help. It is however, only to be used for academic purposes and emergencies. For off-campus business, please contact me by my regular circle. I will accept late assignments, however there will be a five percent penalty for every day it is late. And for the record, late assignments are not appropriate sacrifices to summon me with. To answer the previous question, yes, there will be a five percent participation mark for attendance. Just show up at the lectures and you’ll be fine. Finally, in accordance with university policy, there is zero-tolerance towards plagiarism and cheating. We’ll go over what exactly constitutes cheating after the break, but…” He suddenly turned his gaze up towards the class, somehow making eye contract with all one hundred and thirty-seven of them at once. “Believe me, I will _know_ if you cheat in my class. Finally, all grades are negotiable, and I am willing to be flexible in regards to circumstances and effort put in. However, if you are able to talk a higher grade out of me…”

He let out a small laugh. 

“You will have undoubtedly earned it.”


End file.
